Why Investors Should Be Paying Attention to DATA

Why Investors Should Be Paying Attention to DATA

Blockchain technology is constantly described as being “trustless”, and this might be one of the most useful benefits it has. Even though there are artificial intelligence elements to smart contracts, similar efficiencies exist where the need for a “trustworthy” middleman disappear.

Digital Advertising Needs a Change

As recent news about Facebook and other technology giants has made clear, nobody can truly be trusted in the world of digital advertising. This is where companies like Basic Attention Token originated from, and is exactly the problem DATA is trying to combat.

DATA stands for Decentralized AI-Powered Trust Alliance, and is a digital data authentication protocol that depends on blockchain technology to manage information. Much of the infrastructure is based on AI and P2P frameworks

At its core, DATA is about getting to the root causes of fraud and redesigning the system so it can work much more honorably. Right now, the centralized advertising companies are able to collect massive “rents”, grow in size, and are easily “gamed” by players who learn how to manipulate the system. Additionally, you have the wild statistic that 40% of online ads traffic is bot traffic, which makes you wonder how much actual value companies like Facebook are truly able to add.

And just like Basic Attention Token, DATA wants to make sure that users get compensated for their “attention”. A world where ad-blockers aren’t necessary is a world with a much better functioning Internet.

Understanding the Model

DATA’s cryptocurrency, DTA, is the currency by which advertisements are conducted. Advertisers pay fees to the platform and those fees are distributed between the protocol and the users. In comparison to BAT, DATA has several advantages that include more decentralized reward management, ability to be used across the whole Internet, and having a standalone blockchain.

In recent news, DATA finally launched their Mainnet on December 31st, 2018. Surprisingly, this has had little effect on the price of DTA. The switch is still underway, so perhaps there will be more of a market reaction once it is completed.

DATA is currently ranked as 281 in terms of market capitalization. Looking at the chart of performance in the past month, the price has hovered between 23 and 30 satoshis, which definitely makes it a “different” sort of purchase.

A Risky Buy

Low satoshi coins are generally considered riskier in the same way that penny stocks are considered risky. You always have the people claiming “it only needs to go up 10 satoshis and that’s a 40% return”, but that ignores the true fundamentals of the company.

DTA spent the first half of the last month bouncing between 26 and 27 satoshis. Around Christmas, it sharply dropped, recovered, broke out, and then re-entered the original zone. Since then, it has declined to approximately 24 satoshis.

Many would avoid this sort of a downtrend, but it also makes for the perfect buying opportunity. Assuming the survival of the coin, there is very little room left for it to give, and it is about due for a recovery to its past levels around 50 or 55 satoshis.

Disclaimer: The author owns Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink.

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Binance Coin on Friday is holding healthy gains of around 3% in the early part of the session.

The decentralized exchange Binance DEX testnet was launched earlier this week. Binance will be looking to gather user feedback before an official roll-out of the platform.

Binance’s BNB price continues to somewhat outperform several of its peers. BNB/USDT is trading up over 3% in the early part of the session on Friday. Since the start of February, the BNB bulls have enjoyed a strong move north, having gained around 80%. The price is currently trading in proximity to its highest levels since October 2018, entering a zone that is known for sellers. The next significant technical barrier for the bulls is within reach; for greater upside it must be broken down.

Binance DEX Testnet Running

Earlier this week, Binance, the world largest cryptocurrency exchange by traded volume, launched the testnet for its decentralized trading platform. Binance DEX has been made available for public testing; users can create crypto wallets and start familiarizing themselves with the platform’s interface. The platform is running on the Binance Chain, which is their proprietary blockchain.

Furthermore, the company released a blockchain explorer for the testnet; this allows users to search by an individual block, transaction, asset, address and order ID via the blockchain. The community will be able to participate as individual nodes, in addition to holding their private keys.

Binance has noted it will need to start gathering much feedback from its community on this current testnet. The company can then look at the timeline for a major final step of rolling out the decentralized exchange.

The CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao commented following the announcement:

“With Binance DEX, we provide a different balance of security, freedom, and ease-of-use, where you take more responsibility and are in more control of personal assets.”

Technical Review – BNB/USDT

BNB/USDT daily chart.

Given current upside momentum, the areas of resistance must be noted as potential barriers to disrupt this bull run. Firstly, a supply area can be observed just ahead tracking from $10.90 up to $11.63. The BNB/USDT bulls faltered here on several occasions in August, September and October 2018. The damage occurred after the rejection in October, which gradually went on to lead to a steep bearish trend that commenced in November. The price went on to drop around 50%, throughout November up to early December.

Another chunky wave of buying pressure would likely come into play, should the bulls break the mentioned supply. Furthermore, eyes will then be on a return back towards the $14-$15 price range. BNB/USDT last traded up at these heights back in August 2018, just before the bear market kicked in again with intense selling pressure.

Disclaimer: The author owns Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink.

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4.6 stars on average, based on 126 rated postsKen has over 8 years exposure to the financial markets. During a large part of his career, he worked as an analyst, covering a variety of asset classes; forex, fixed income, commodities, equities and cryptocurrencies. Ken has gone on to become a regular contributor across several large news and analysis outlets.

XMR/USD: Recent Price Behavior

Monero’s XMR price has been cooling over the last day, having dropped around 5% at the time of writing on Thursday. The move south comes after a decent run higher over the past couple of weeks. XMR/USD jumped almost 30% from 7th February up to 19th February, before easing away from the high print. The price did manage to hit its highest level seen since 10th January.

Security Intelligence Identifies Monero Hacking Tool

Researchers at Trend Micro, a security intelligence firm, have detailed that there is a notable surge in a Monero hack-tool installation. It reportedly attempts to exploit a vulnerability seen on Windows SMB, which has been patched up since 2017. Organizations in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Italy are said to be the ones targeted, according to the researchers.

The blog published via Trend Micro details that the tool seems to be a merger of existing threats. In particular, it has targeted Microsoft Windows users – MIMIKATZ and RADMIN. As per Trend Micro:

“Between the last week of January to February, we noticed an increase in hack tool installation attempts. That dropped seemingly random files into the Windows directory. Initially appearing unrelated, the analysis showed the final payload to be a Monero cryptocurrency-mining malware variant. It scans for open port 445 and exploits a Windows SMB Server Vulnerability MS17-010 (patched in 2017) for its infection and propagation routines.”

The research does not come as much of a surprise, given the raft of Monero mining malware threats seen over the past year. Cyber criminals have strong favor for the altcoin given its privacy and anonymity, in addition to the ease of mining it on devices as simple as laptops and smartphones.

Technical Review – XMR/USD

XMR/USD daily chart.

Given the current edging south, eyes are now on the next area of support, which can be seen below at the prior acting range-block formation. XMR/USD between 11th Jan to 8th February was moving within a narrowing daily range. The area above this is now acting as support, as seen between 10-17th February. This came into play after a breakout and retest of the breached block. In terms of the comfort area, it is seen tracking from $47.50 down to $42.00. The bear pressure may prove to be too much for the support and force a breach. Another potential retest of the low down at $38.80 could be called into action.

Lastly, resistance to the upside is observed from the $53-$60 price range, which is the near-term supply and high area from 24th December to early January 2019. Further north, there can also be a chunky barrier seen ahead of the psychological $100 mark, tracking from $75-$95 range.

Disclaimer: The author owns Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink.

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Important for improving the service. Please add a comment in the comment field below explaining what you rated and why you gave it that rate. Failed Trade Recommendations should not be rated as that is considered a failure either way. (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)You need to be a registered member to rate this.Loading...

4.6 stars on average, based on 126 rated postsKen has over 8 years exposure to the financial markets. During a large part of his career, he worked as an analyst, covering a variety of asset classes; forex, fixed income, commodities, equities and cryptocurrencies. Ken has gone on to become a regular contributor across several large news and analysis outlets.

Why Investors Should Be Paying Attention to Aelf

So far, each iteration in the evolution of cryptocurrencies and blockchain companies has come with its own issues and setbacks. This is because the scale of the companies is actually fairly limited, and not as comprehensive as the promises made by blockchain fanatics.

Part of this the lack of connectivity between blockchains, but there is also the issue of the blockchains not having the scalability necessary to accommodate huge companies. When you have a bunch of separate blockchains functioning out of sync, it is hard to build anything significant, as the “ecosystem” is coming to find.

A Natural Evolution

The evolution of the space started with Bitcoin – there were coins before, but nothing that caught on – which was the equivalent of a “simple app”. It could be traded and used the basic functionality of blockchain, but there was nothing complicated about its use case.

Then there was Ethereum, which allowed for smart contracts and other protocols to be built out upon it. This results in a lot of different apps functioning on the same platform, much like an app platform.

Finally, the hope is that Aelf will be able to create a blockchain operating system (much like Linux) that will add an infinite level of scalability to the platform. It would be developer and consumer friendly and function with high reliability.

Two Key Innovations

This blockchain operating system depends on two major innovations: side chains and a unique governance system. By using a multi-chain architecture rather than a “main” blockchain, they avoid many of the pitfalls of NEO or Ethereum. Ideally, this will allow Aelf to be highly available and have a high transaction-per-second capacity.

Additionally, companies will be able to rent out nodes (nodes as a service) to help process their side chains when they’re having scaling issues. This is one of the many benefits of operating on an operating system-esque model.

The governance system for Aelf must be unique, since regular consensus algorithms wouldn’t work when confirming information from side chains on tho the main chain. Therefore, a Delegated Proof-of-Stake algorithm is used, which helps you vote on which nodes will become mining nodes and have the ability to confirm transactions.

Current State of Aelf

Aelf is currently in a big growth period. The main net launch is scheduled for 2019, with the development team publishing consistent updates along the way.

The protocol uses their proprietary token, ELF, as a utility token that permits users to access, interact with, and directly participate in DAPPS and other services. No ICO occurred for ELF and it was instead financed using a private token sale.

Breakout Potential

Currently ranked 89th in terms of market capitalization and available on Binance, ELF had a rough December, with a recent recovery occurring during a consolidation period.

The current prices around 3,000 to 3,500 satoshis represent a good buying area while waiting for a breakout. ELF is a fairly volatile coin and with consolidation occurring rapidly, it isn’t unreasonable to think it could hit 4,500 satoshis.

Additionally, with the pending development and release of its mainnet, the fundamental could potentially change very quickly. This could assist the technicals and create a highly profitable breakout, which makes it a good short- or medium-term trade.

Disclaimer: The author owns Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink.

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Important for improving the service. Please add a comment in the comment field below explaining what you rated and why you gave it that rate. Failed Trade Recommendations should not be rated as that is considered a failure either way. (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5)You need to be a registered member to rate this.Loading...

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